So Close
by Todd Hawley
Perhaps now I finally understand the note of pessimism in every longtime Giants fan's psyche.
So close, so motherfriggin' close! Sigh. There I was along with tens of thousands of other Giants fans in Game 6 watching my dreams of Da Boys Winning Da Big One fly away in the late October Anaheim evening sky. As first Felix, then Tim, then even Robb developed a case of "stiff neck syndrome" and lost the Series. Game 7 was really an afterthought, but of course Livan didn't help it any by giving up those four runs in the third inning. Okay, Livan, thanks for the memories, but for God's sake please pitch somewhere else next year.
I sit here on a gray and damp November afternoon wearing my "Giants 2002 National League Champions" shirt, partly to get into the proper frame of mind to write this piece and partly because it happened to be sitting on top of the other shirts in my drawer. I wore this shirt to Game 4 of the World Series. God, what an amazing night: temperature in the high 50's with clear skies, not too bad for mid-October. You could walk out to the concession area on the third deck and see the skyline with no fog in sight. And as I sat in my third-deck seat during the game, I reflected on my good fortune in snagging a ticket to it and on the fact that I was a average guy in my late forties with not as much to show for my life as I would like, but still having had the good fortune to witness history at Pac Bell. And along with 41,000 others, I was banging my Thunderstix and screaming my head off and having a blast doing it. Dealing with the huge mobs everywhere I went, the electric atmosphere, and the thought "Hey, this is the World Series at Pac Bell Park!" So much different from Game 3 of 1989, which I also attended: no earthquake this time and the Giants actually won the game!
I suppose even though the Giants pissed it all away and it still really frickin' hurts to realize that, they were incredibly lucky to make it to the Series. I remember attending two or three games during the season where they had no offense to speak of. There was a 1-0 loss to the Diamondbacks in which Kirk Rueter pitched about a three-hitter, but one of the hits was a Luis Gonzalez home run. And a Sunday game against the Orioles in which their no-name pitcher made the Giants look like a bunch of Double-A players. I started softly cursing the likes of Tsuyoshi Shinjo, J.T. Snow, Reggie Sanders, and so forth who never did seem to find their way past the .240 mark for the season. And all I could think was, "No way this team makes the playoffs!"
Of course, things were darkest in August when they were playing the Marlins and were, what, 11 or 12 games out. And yet somehow from that nadir, they found a way to claw back into the wild card and even the pennant race. Like the "Hoosiers" bit they show on the Pac Bell scoreboard in the bottom of the ninth (when the Giants are tied or losing) to get the crowd going and to motivate the Giants to get a rally going that will win the game for them, the Giants found a way to rally back. They seemingly were in Rally Mode from that low point in the season, through all of September, through the Division Series and the LCS. It was great fun that ended so abruptly and sadly.
And yet in so many ways, this was the most fulfilling season I've had watching baseball in a lot of years. I made it out to Pac Bell 15 times this year, thanks largely to running into an old friend before the season started who had a partial ticket plan and needed someone to go to the some of the games with her. As a result, I got to see a lot of Giants baseball this season and voted early and often for my All-Star selections. (Hey, most of them even made the teams!) I even got to see the Fresno Grizzlies (the Giants' Triple-A team) play twice, once at Pac Bell in mid-April and once in Sacramento against the River Cats in late August. (And as an aside here, if you haven't made it up to see a River Cats game, go next season. Their stadium is awesome, a cozy little park that holds about 10,000 or so. Fun place to watch a minor league game.)
It seemed like the Giants were on a mission: not "a mission from God," as Dan Aykroyd said in the Blues Brothers movie, but more a mission to prove all the doomsayers and Dusty-bashers wrong. And hey, it almost worked. When they clinched the wild card on the next-to-last day of the season, I said, "Great, but they won't get past Atlanta." And yet they did, putting together some gutsy performances. Livan (gasp!) came through, Ortiz came through, and voilá, the Braves' fans were left holding their Styrofoam tomahawks in muted silence that Monday night early in October. Even though each game was scary as hell to watch and it seemed like the Braves could come back at any time to win, it still was exhilarating to watch the Giants shake off their postseason curse. After that win, I stopped watching playoff baseball for a couple days. I needed time to calm down and let my blood pressure return to near normal.
Then came the Cardinals in the LCS, and my BP went sky high again. Frankly, I lost a lot of respect for Tony LaRussa in this series. Okay, not pitching to Bonds was gutless, but I suppose that was the thing to do, seeing as everyone else has done it for two seasons now. But going after Lofton in that first game because he lingered for a moment watching his home run? And LaRussa whining about the fine he had to pay as a result of the ensuing brawl? Give me a break! So because of that and the ghost of Jose Oquendo from 1987, I of course was deliriously happy the Giants beat them. Livan again came through, so did Russ, and Benito totally rocked. It seemed somehow the Giants were truly the team of destiny, even if virtually every LCS game was a nail-biter, just as the Braves' series had been. When Lofton lifted that base hit into the outfield in the bottom of the ninth in Game 5, I screamed and cried. As I listened to the Giants' postgame show that night and heard Mike Krukow yell out "I'm goin to Disneyland!" I realized we were in for something special. And maybe, just maybe, a World Championship? Was that too much to ask for? Maybe it was.
And in my exuberance, I also realized the adversity the Cardinals went through this year. Losing both Jack Buck (a remarkable man and sportscaster) and Daryl Kile (no boy the age of Kile's sons should ever have to suffer the loss of his dad) had to take a terrible toll on the team and its fans. Matt Morris, wherever you are, I will not ever forget your friend and what a loss this and Buck's deaths were for you and everyone else in the Cardinal organization. Funny how just the other day I bought a 2002 Topps Baseball set and lingered for a moment in silence when I came across Kile's card.
And yet the days after the LCS was over, leading up to Game 1, were kind of fun. We could congratulate each other and even the Angels fans on making it to the Series. Nice that two teams made it whom no one expected to see -- much to the ire, I'm sure, of Fox Sports -- and teams like the Braves, Yankees, and Diamondbacks were going to be at home watching it on TV.
Ah yes, the Angels of Anaheim: also a team of destiny this season. Having grown up (as I constantly remind everyone) in Southern California, I sort of followed the Angels in the late '60s and early '70s. They were always the poor stepchild to the Dodgers. And somehow with them also reaching the Series, I realized the Dodgers for once had to take a back seat (grudgingly I'm sure) to them. And heck, I couldn't root too hard against them. They had knocked the Yankees out of the playoffs. It was somehow gratifying to see Giambi and company with their long faces in the dugout knowing they were going home early. And the Angels' 10-run inning against the Twins in Game 5 of the ALCS was alternately sad (if you had empathy for Twins fans) and scary, knowing that was the Giants' next opponent.
I hoped that at the very least the Giants would be competitive in the Series, and they were, up to the Game 6 debacle. They won their first Series games since 1962! Even if Kent, Sanders, and Santiago slumped, the rest of the team picked up the slack. Snow caught fire in the playoffs. Hell, Shawon Dunston, who had been a joke all season, even hit that fateful home run in Game 6. And just think, it was the Giants' last home run of 2002. So it was a great Series, but as with Game 6 in 1986, it turned into disaster. And since I'm a Red Sox fan as well as the Giants, it was in Yogi's words, déjà vu all over again." What is it about Game 6's anyway? Todd Worrell blew Game 6 in 1985, Buckner in 1986, and Todd's brother Tim in 2002.
And while "2002 National League Champion San Francisco Giants" has a nice ring to it, it also carries the tag of "runners-up." While Dusty did prove everyone wrong who said he could never take a team of "overachievers" (like the Giants always seemed to be) to a World Series, he still came up short. I so wanted to be writing a "World Champions" Postmortem piece right now and talk about what it was like to see my team win a World Series title. Alas, not this year, and who knows when? Dusty has moved on -- because he felt "unappreciated" by the Giants and the local media. Well, I hope the millions he'll get from the Cubs will help to soothe his fragile ego from the sting of the criticism he's likely to endure from the harsh Chicago media.
So now the Giants' immediate future is uncertain. While the Giants went so much farther than anything expected them to (and perhaps farther than they should have gone), all we remember, of course, are Games 6 and 7. The lasting memory of the Game 6 bullpen failure and Livan's three-inning, four-runs-surrendered performance in Game 7 will linger all through these winter months, instead of all the amazing regular-season and playoff wins that got us to that point. And the fans 470 miles or so to the south of us have a much brighter winter to look forward to. They waited 42 years for a world championship. They know something about patience as well as we do, not to mention most are Dodger haters.
And something else to think about: In each of the three seasons Pac Bell has been open, the Giants have had a memorable accomplishment. In 2000, it was having the major leagues' best record (albeit followed by the quick playoff exit). In 2001, it was Barry's 73 home runs. In 2002, a World Series. A park only three years old that already has some history to it -- that has to count for something.
Will our Giants be back in the postseason next year? Highly doubtful, especially given that their future at the moment looks almost as bleak as the gray skies outside. Dusty is gone, and he took Sonny Jackson and Gene Clines with him to Chicago. Bringing in Felipe Alou to replace him was a good move for now. Shinjo is gone (yay!), Sanders most likely will be gone, Bell is now gone, and Kent is likely good as gone as I write this. How many others will be gone by next April? Of course, if "Jekyll and Hyde" Livan is gone as well, maybe it won't be so bad. Gregg, our esteemed EEEEEE! editor, has always touted me as the "voice of hope" in my Postmortem pieces. Well, not this time. Perhaps now I finally understand the note of pessimism in every longtime Giants fan's psyche. To come this close and yet not reach the pinnacle is heartbreaking. Although I've only been a Giants' fan since the mid-'80s, now I know something of that heartbreak and why Giants fans remain hopeful but cautious year in and year out. I somehow feel the same sense of frustration I felt two years ago when the Giants had the best regular-season record in baseball, only to fall so meekly in the postseason. This time the postseason ride was much longer, but we still came up short. So close indeed, and yet so far. Sigh.
Copyright ©2002 by Todd Hawley
Last updated 12/29/02